As is well known to those skilled in the art, it is desirable to hydrotreat heavy hydrocarbon oils to convert them to lighter hydrocarbons which may be used as feed to conventional refining processes. Efficient operation requires that the refiner make maximum utilization of the valuable components of the effluent streams from this and other processes.
It is an object of this invention to provide a novel process and apparatus for effecting hydrotreating of heavy oils. It is another object of this invention to integrate a hydrotreating operation and a synthesis gas production operation. Other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.